144 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST 



Catcher, which I fear he made & figured from a European one 

 in the Philadelphia museum, took the descriptions from Latham, 

 and described the Habits of Palliartus which is our own Bird 

 and it seems the only species to be met with in America, at least 

 on our Atlantic coast. Wilson committed the same blunder with 

 the Rallus elegans which he figured and described the habits of 

 the R. capitans for it ! I could enumerate more instances of 

 carelessness, but poor Wilson is dead and may God bless his 

 soul! 



The third volume of his letterpress, 12 which dealt 

 with the water birds of America, made its appearance 

 at the close of 1835; in the introduction he said: 



I look forward to the summer of 1838 with an anxious hope 

 that I may then be able to present you with the last plate of my 

 Illustrations, and the concluding volume of my Biographies. 

 To render these volumes as complete as possible, I intend to 

 undertake a journey to the southern and western limits of the 

 Union, with the view of obtaining a more accurate knowledge 

 of the birds of those remote and scarcely inhabited regions. On 

 this tour I shall be accompanied by my youngest son, while 

 the rest of*my family will remain in Britain to direct the prog- 

 ress of my publication. 



Audubon returned tp London with his family early 

 in 1836, visiting Newcastle, York, Leeds, Manchester 

 and Sheffield by the way, and took a house at Number 4, 

 Wimpole Street, Cavendish Square. As Mrs. Audu- 

 bon's health was anything but good, they were fortunate 

 in having as a neighbor in this street an eminent surgeon, 

 Benjamin Phillips, 13 and this friend was also a sub- 

 scriber to The Birds of America. "Were I to men- 

 tion," said Audubon, 



12 See Bibliography No. 2. 



13 For letter written to Dr. Phillips in 1842, see Vol. II, p. 244. 



